[1] The Civil War was ending, and the Union did not want to have to keep hundreds of thousands of men under arms to defend immigrants against Indian attacks.
Federal commissioners with great prestige and standing among the Indians were General Harney, Colonel Leavenworth, Kit Carson and William Bent.
The white representatives wanted peace, unmolested traffic on the Santa Fe trail and limitation of Indian territory.
Treaties made here gave the Indians reservations south of the Arkansas, excluded them north to the Platte and proclaimed peace.
Several white captives were released, among them a woman and four children from Texas, the Box family, taken by a war party under Satanta.